Posted by Captain Julien King (Captain) in Meeting with the XO & CNS - In a neutral area

Posted by Lieutenant Riley Dekker (CNS & 2O) in Meeting with the CNS - In a neutral area

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Calvin Marius (First Officer) in Meeting with the CNS - In a neutral area Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻 <snip> : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley looked into his drink, swirling the brown liquid languidly around the inside of the glass. It gave him a minute to run Calvin’s words through his mind and think through the implications of his questions. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Medical ethics are their own field, no? I suppose it comes down to the profession’s creed, do no harm. Can you harm something that lack sentience? Maybe not. But I wonder if denying a clone sentience is doing harm in its own right,” Riley leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, glass cradled between both hands. The position caused him to tilt his head up slightly to look at Calvin. “To put all the pieces together, make them work, and then hold back that last spark. It seems selfish.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Dekker, CNS : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “We synthesize meat all the time, never creating the whole cow isn’t that creating pieces without putting them together for that last ‘spark’? That seems like a moral line that someone wants to make because it inconveniences fewer people. ” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley nodded, more to show he’d heard rather than agreed. He was letting Calvin’s point percolate in his mind. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “And what of life, if I could take something, build something knowing that it would never reach it’s maximum possible existence, but by its creation i could save dozens… would it now be okay?” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “We make decisions like that all the time. Sacrifice one to save a hundred. In this case, sacrifice nothing and save one… seems like an easy calculation to me.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Marius : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “From a truly dispassionate point of view, creating non-sentient clones from which to harvest organs and prolong the lives of others is a logical medical practice. I’ll give you that. The fear is, if we only look at this through the lens of medical science we may slowly lose our humanity. The more we become comfortable with practices on the edge of the abhorrent, the more open we may be to the truly horrific. Our collective perspective as a society shifts.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “I’ve seen many of the horrors that ‘civilized’ races can perform. Cloning a heart to save a life isn’t one of them.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley paused, still leaning forward as if relaxing back into his chair would cause him to lose his train of thought. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “I don’t believe in the inevitability of a slippery slope, but it’s not difficult for people to imagine that creating one clone would make it easier to create dozens, then hundreds, until we normalize virtual body farms. Does society’s perspective then shift? Can we harvest organs for superficial purposes rather than out of medical necessity or allow for minimal sentience if it helps improve the quality of certain organs? It’s not what your arguing for, but it’s the fear that’s caused us to draw the line where we have. I suppose, as a collective, we’ve decided that sort of future is frightening enough that we’ll pay the opportunity cost.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Dekker, CNS : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Humans have done it for Eons, feeding on animals that have a lower level of sentience, but they certainly can think, feel, and mourn their own deaths.” He refilled their glasses. “I’m talking about cloned body parts not full clones with their own wills.” : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley nodded at that. It made a difference. Creating treatments from stem cells had been around for centuries, although not without it’s own level of controversy in the beginning. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “You mourn for the un-sentient, theoretical life, because you don’t see the actual life lost before you.” He looked off into space. “I’ve seen hundreds die before me, known tens of thousands about me, friends, enemies, my parents.” He looked Dekker right in the eyes. : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “I’d build a million clones and cut them up for parts if it would save any of them. You’d do the same if it was your family… your lover.” He made a pointed statement. : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley could sense the emotion behind Calvin’s words. He’d suspected this was more than a theoretical conversation, now he was sure, but what was the prompting? : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “I won’t let my children die unborn… ” He correct his statement. “I won’t let children be left unborn because people are afraid that they don’t know the difference between medical necessity and someone attempting to be immortal at the expense of the weak.” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : Marius XO : : : : : : : : : : : : : Riley leaned back. Calvin had said something, but the whiskey was keeping the dots from connecting in his mind immediately. : : : : : : : : : : : : “We don’t leave choices like this to those too close emotionally,” he started, responding to Calvin’s comment about a dying loved one, but only as he tracked Calvin’s words in his mind, did the pieces come together. “This is about Sage, isn’t it? What she lost when the Genesis was destroyed?” : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : The questions were out before he could keep them in. Without the whiskey, Riley could have approached this more tactically, kept the conversation in the realm of the theoretical, in a place that was comfortable for Calvin, but the whiskey had flattened any speedbumps between his brain and his tongue. : : : : : : : : : : : : Dekker, CNS : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Really, medical proxys are typically loved ones, if you don’t have a proxy it automatically becomes the closest relatively or spouse… so exactly when aren’t these decisions made by those who are too close emotionally.” Calvin didn’t answer the second part of the comment. He refilled their glasses… “For a shrink you drink pretty good… not as good as a marine.” He tipped up his glass. Marius had a hollow leg. : : : : : : : : : : Marius : : : : : : : : Riley took the compliment, “Oh yeah, we can make decisions for loved ones, because we have their interests at heart. We don’t get to decide the fate of another. Totally different incentive. Someone harms our loved one, we don’t decide how they’re punished. Same for cloning. Our love for a family member, a spouse, might make us cross an ethical line too easily. Like you said, you’d build a million clones and cut them up for parts to save a loved one. When love and ethics battle it out, love’s going to win, but it doesn’t make it right.” : : : : : : “True enough.” Calvin tilted his head conceding part of the point. “It doesn’t make it wrong either. Some times you have to care to understand what truly is at stake. I don’t risk my life for others because I care for them. I risk my life because I know what love is, and someone loves the person I’m saving. : : : : : : : : Riley took another pull from his drink. His mind wasn’t as sharp as it was when he arrived. He could hold his drink, but he didn’t match Marius’s mass. It took him a second to realize the XO had ignored his earlier question. : : : : : : : : “What is this about? This isn’t totally hypothetical.” : : : : : : : : Dekker, CNS : : : : : : “Counselor its better for you if we keep it hypothetical. There is a phrase in law, ‘accomplice after the fact.’” Marius took a drink again. The sheer volume of alcohol he was putting down would tranquilize a horse, but he wasn’t slurring his words or even looking glassy eyed. : : : : : : “We all have something to lose, but only I have something to gain. So let only one of us take the risk… hmm..: : : : : : : Marius : : : Riley’s tolerance of alcohol came from experience, not from size, and his own affect was beginning to show signs of the drink. He hadn’t quite been matching Marius, but he’d been holding his own enough for his tongue to be loosened. : : “Thank you, I think, right?” he didn’t mean to sound unsure, but his word filter was compromised. “You’re looking out for me. I get it. That’s nice, but sometimes it’s healthy to share the burden. I’ve told you what I can in the hypothetical. Ethics are subjective, driven by group consensus. Sometimes we draw a line more conservatively than necessary to keep us a distance from the edge. And sometimes when we cross a line, laws be damned, it isn’t only the law we offend. Sometimes it’s the person we want to help.” : Calvin tilted his head… “Frankly I came looking for an ally to share the fight.” He stared off. “Through no fault of your own, I didn’t find one.” : Riley didn’t know exactly what Calvin was wanting to do, but he did know it had to do with Sage. The man shared with few people, and the fact that he’d sought out Riley meant he couldn’t go to Sage. That, coupled with the fact that Riley knew Sage had lost her embryos with the old Genny, gave him a good idea of what had prompted this conversation. : : Dekker, CNS Calvin stood up rather abruptly. He emptied the bottle between the their two glasses. “Enjoy that Mr. Dekker. Might be the best whiskey in the sector.” Marius
It was classic Marius. Riley wasn’t sure anyone outside Sage and Julien ever satisfied his expectations.
“Sometimes events out of our control really screw things up,” Riley stood. “It can make us search for a way to take control again, to prove we’re masters of our own destiny. Most of the time that just works to prevent us from accepting our new truth. I don’t know what fight you have before you. You won’t tell me and I have to trust you when you say it’s for my own good, but I have to ask you this. Is it a fight you can win, and if you do, will the victory be worth the cost?”
Dekker, CNS

Marius paused as he considered the words. Then a small feral smile crossed his lips. “You asked an excellent question… and the answer to both is yes.” Dekker might have been trying to caution the executive officer to be more careful take all the factors in consideration, but it only made his course more clear to him. It was something he could control and the risk was far outweighed by the reward.

Marius

Riley nodded. He should have known Marius would give no other answer.

“Okay, then, what can I do to help?”

Dekker, CNS

“You say that, but if you knew… I don’t think you would.” Marius responded before walking away.

Marius